2010 OLYMPICS:

The past three weeks have been very Grecian, in the sense that the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada, have been dominating the airwaves and water-cooler chitchat. However, in yet another surprising move from NBC, the closing ceremonies on Feb. 28 were preempted to make room for a new reality show produced by NBC’s former prodigal child, Jerry Seinfeld.
The games began on a sad note Feb. 12 when Georgian athlete Nodar Kumaritashvili was killed hours before the opening ceremonies on a training run of the luge. There were technical issues during the opening ceremonies during the cauldron-lighting ceremony.
Events were delayed due to mechanical problems and thousands of attendee tickets had to be voided because weather conditions made it dangerous to have “standing room only.”
The Vancouver games also witnessed many great triumphs, including Canada breaking the record for the amount of gold medals awarded at one Winter Olympics with 14, taking the title from the former Soviet Union and Norway. The United States also set Winter Olympic records, taking home a grand total of 37 medals, nine of which were gold.
So why the impromptu interruption of the climax of over 800 hours of coverage to give the public a 30-minute sampling of what NBC, no doubt, is hoping will be more successful than The Jay Leno Show?
As expected in today’s society, this move prompted an onslaught of updates to various social networking sites, going so far as to become a “trending topic” on the domain of Twitter. Many users seemed surprised, confused and even angry as to what was going on. Canadian Jamie Calder posted a simple “so they still think we’re a bunch of Mounties, & hockey players…?”
NBC commentator Bob Costas notified viewers that the closing ceremonies would resume following the debut of The Marriage Ref, and shortly thereafter faded into commercial break.
The New York Times, updating live via the closing ceremonies, said on their blog at 10:43 p.m.: “Apparently the closing ceremony is no longer being shown on NBC or its sister channels. Here’s what you’re missing: The ceremony has morphed into an all-star rock concert, with the athletes, most of them wearing foam moose antlers, invited to descend onto the stage and sway to Canada’s best-known entertainers.”
NBC’s move to sandwich a new hopeful in the middle of a timeless tradition has been shamed by everyone from the common blogger to The Associated Press, who likened it to if CBS were to cut into the Super Bowl with one of their new reality series.
Regardless of why they did it, NBC has developed a reputation for being able to walk away unscathed no matter how many times they shoot themselves in the foot. They had just better hope Seinfeld is as funny as he used to be, otherwise the peacock might have a little more trouble rising from the ashes in the future.